A Gun control solution - perhaps

Cool. So pass a law that says you are legally responsible for every bullet you fire, and every use of your gun. (Of course, that means we have to keep records of who has which gun and which bullet, but that's easy.) Problem solved.

That the data be retained under gun owner control via that National association thus avoiding or at least mitigating the fears that government control inspire in gun owners.

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Gun owners, in general, do not "control" the NRA. The US government has no authority or ability to outsource the functions of government in the manner you propose. The NRA is not a trustworthy repository of data, or even a capable one on that scale. And so forth.

(I often wonder who was enriched by the mandatory minimum sentencing laws, and who they bribed and what they payed compared to what they earned in profits)

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This is recorded history - the original motive was to take advantage of racism and switch (white) or suppress (black, brown) the Democratic Party vote, thereby gaining political power for the Republican Party. Nixon's on tape saying this, Atwater et al are on record, Reagan's code (welfare queens, young bucks committing crimes) was transparent. The Dems, always eager to slap "bipartisan" on the latest bad idea, hopped on.
The private prisons etc came along later.

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On either side.
Starting - in many cases - with people finding themselves assigned to some "gun lobby" of bad character and rhetoric.

Hence the jamb.

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What counts as not so long ago, in these Trumptacular days? It feels like it wasn't so long ago—well, okay, November—that K. T. Nelson↱ asked the obvious question about Trump supporters: "How do you engage with someone who doesn't just not care if their aggressive political stances upset you, but wants you to get upset—someone for whom 'this makes people upset' is actually the whole reason to have that stance in the first place?"

These days later, our society finds itself somewhere between murmur and buzz and screech about civility, yet in its particular context one of the questions you and I might agree on is, "Civil compared to what?" It is easy enough to see, as Nelson considers, among certain quarters of the #trumpswindle ("It's supposed to be sad when we can't bring ourselves to sit down to a meal with people we disagree with"), or the incel tantrums demanding allocated sex partners or mass murder: Is there actually a polite way for one to go out of their way to be offensive? Is there a polite way to blackmail society that one would stop being violent if only women would sexually satisfy him? I think back over years—let's go with a decade, since I still invoke the hand grenade bit—and is there really a polite way to justify rape? Or if we want to be "civil" and not make those advocates nearly so uncomfortable, is there a polite way to advise women to suspect all men and then complain that feminism suspects all men? Is there a polite, "civil" way for a police chief to tell lies in defense of murderous racism? Is there a polite way to tank process in order to protect racist killers? It still feels like it somehow makes proverbial perfect sense that it was the head of the Fraternal Order of Police in Baltimore who dropped the line about requiring unequivocal support. Is there really a polite, civil way to demand unequivocal support for lethal corruption?

Any given episode of folksy machismo probably doesn't live up to a police chief going after Black Lives Matter over a make-believe "Ferguson effect", but there is also a cumulative effect after decades of consistent disrespect. And this really is a weird bit about the American firearms discussion: For all the chatter we've heard over the years about how there are no accidents, or the charming, folksy versions about not wasting ammo, the one consistent aspect about those self-gratifying distractions is insincerity.

Gun owners, in any collective sense, are not in any way over the NRA. Do you remember once upon a time, probably during the Bush Jr. administration but especially as the GOP dropped its pretenses of civility during Obama's presidency, when it was possible to be surprised that independent generally voters broke Democratic because the only time you heard people actually calling themselves independents, they were also reciting Republican pitches? (It's also true most of my would-be independent friends who supported Democrats just called themselves socialists or liberals and eventually registered as Democrats, anyway.)

There are plenty of gun owners who try to distance themselves from the NRA, but what prevails over time is that even they will echo some of the most basic pop tripe dogma.

Not wasting ammo, or whatever folksy charmspin one wants to put on it, sounds wonderful, and all, except we already know gun owners simply refuse to be held accountable; our neighbor makes the point; while your conservative appeal to "the bothsides jamb" is about as desperate as when we hear it from other conservatives—

(One side wants to go out of their way to be deadly assholes, the other is sick and tired of that shit! It's a bothsides jamb! What a world, what a world!)​

Yeah, if it worked, it would have worked. And the gun lobby certainly won't stand for good advice being made requisite under law. And the thing is, we already know the only body count high enough to discourage the gun lobby is the one that necessarily reduces its clients' sales because there aren't enough people left to buy the damn guns.

Meanwhile, it seems worth wondering what body count will satisfy our neighbor sufficiently to stop mocking the dead. I mean, sure, maybe he doesn't like the idea of mandatory responsibility, but going out of his way to remind why the gun lobby's pitch people can't be trusted doesn't do anything to help that "good advice" ring any more sincere.

To wit: What's that? Another gun advocate bullshitting people the same way they have for decades. Well, shit, nothin' new, here.
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There are plenty of gun owners who try to distance themselves from the NRA, but what prevails over time is that even they will echo some of the most basic pop tripe dogma.

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It's almost as common as the gun fearful who try to distance themselves from the prospect of mass gun confiscation, but over time will inevitably roll in the suicides with the "gun deaths" and talk about treating gun possession as one treats car driving.
Or is it only pop tripe dogma when it's something a gun owner says?

And the gun lobby certainly won't stand for good advice being made requisite under law.

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Neither will a lot of other people who aren't in anything remotely describable as a gun lobby - at least, not a gun lobby like this one: "the only body count high enough to discourage the gun lobby is the one that necessarily reduces its clients' sales ".
Setting out to make good advice requisite under law is a fast way to make political opponents out of reasonable people. The track record is bad.

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Now that was in response to my post there. And the only mention of the NRA in my post was the plain fact that gun owners - in general, as a group - do not control it. So what's up?

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Your lack of reading comprehension.

No, really, I mean, I know that sounds like just another cheap jab, but, really, why did you get in if you weren't paying attention?

So then you say that weird thing about "people finding themselves assigned to some 'gun lobby'", and are answered, and that is what you came up with, apparently.

So what's up?

Whatever.

It's almost as common as the gun fearful who try to distance themselves from the prospect of mass gun confiscation, but over time will inevitably roll in the suicides with the "gun deaths" and talk about treating gun possession as one treats car driving.
Or is it only pop tripe dogma when it's something a gun owner says?

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Oh, give it a rest. You don't give a damn about the dead.

It's pop tripe when it's pop tripe. Like the not a Republican independents I mentioned who could only recite Republican pitches. You might remember that identifying Republicans were polling as low as one in five. They're not really independents when the point is that they just don't want to admit they're Republicans; and they're not really so distant from the NRA when they abide the same ritual disrespect we've heard from the lobby for decades.

Neither will a lot of other people who aren't in anything remotely describable as a gun lobby - at least, not a gun lobby like this one: "the only body count high enough to discourage the gun lobby is the one that necessarily reduces its clients' sales ".

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Well, they can claim what they want, but when they parrot the lobby they make their position clear.

Setting out to make good advice requisite under law is a fast way to make political opponents out of reasonable people.

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You can consider the bloodthirsty as reasonable as you want; hell, call them fine people if you want. Your position is clear enough.

Because that's the thing: It never really was good advice. It was always just disrespectful bullshit.

I give a damn about the atrocities inevitable in the political establishments of those committed to backing absurdity, error, dishonesty, bad faith, useless symbolism, and so forth,
with the police.
And so do lots of other people.

and they're not really so distant from the NRA when they abide the same ritual disrespect we've heard from the lobby for decades.

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And "they" is gun owners, you said - remember. Less than 40% of the population of my State - even smaller fractions of other States.
Even if you lost them all - and you never have, in MN, not even close - it wouldn't matter, if you could get a 2/3 majority of the non-owners. But you can't, for some reason. Must be that ritual disrespect getting into the drinking water and afflicting the innocent.
Meanwhile: actual NRA members around here - not the somehow not so distant gun owners, but the actual enrolled membership - consistently poll 80% favoring universal background checks. The remaining 20% is a minority fringe of a minority subgroup of a minority fraction of the voting public.
That should be a slam dunk, come the vote. Any idea why it isn't?

You can consider the bloodthirsty as reasonable as you want; hell, call them fine people if you want. Your position is clear enough.

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I'm sick of losing elections because incompetent and dangerously authoritarian weaselworders who are wrong about physical realities suck up the airwaves and alienate the reasonable. And bless us all if the Dems aren't setting up for another round - we've got a Dem Party officially endorsed Gubernatorial ticket ideally positioned and rhetorically armed for getting every Clinton vote in the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District, with every Dem in the rest of the State hoping they get beat in the primary. https://www.twincities.com/2018/06/02/erin-murphy-gets-dfl-backing-for-governor/

Here's the thing, what I'm trying to understand, the thing I don't understand.

Why are these kinds of accountability laws needed?

For example.

If a gun goes off, and a bullet goes through the wall and kills a neighbor, the man is accused of manslaughter. He gets punished. So why exactly do we need more redundant laws, when said laws already exist?

If a gun goes of and kills his own kid, then he has lost his own kid. Why does he need additional punishment when already is punished enough, and has lost his own kid?

Same as if a reckless kids accidentally shoots his own father. What do you propose, fining the kid? Sending him to prison? Isn't he punished enough, by accidentally killing his own father?

Why are these redundant laws even needed? If a gun goes off accidentally killing someone, there are already laws to cover that.

So it boils down to this.
They ban Assault Rifles.
Mass murders still happen, so then the ban Handguns.
Mass murders still happen, so then they ban all firearms.
Now, mass murders are done by stabbings, poison, and bombs.
They ban bombs and put security guards in all restaurants and food areas. Now if you own a restaurant, you will have to pay for a security gaurd who watches over your employees at all times.
Also, you will need a special permit to buy certain common harmless things now, because certain common harmless things can be used to make bombs.
With bombs and poison banned, people will now go on mass sword and stabbing sprees.
They will go to the gym, get fit, toned up, to ensure they can outrun and fell all of their foes.
Then gyms will be banned, running in public will be banned, exercise will be banned, martial arts will be banned. You will be forced to put cameras in your house to ensure that you never exercise.
Everything will be virtual reality, no more forest, only an infinite city, a total police state where people die at age 30 or so, no freedom, no agency, all to keep you "safe", this is exactly what they wanted, its absolutely maddening to think about, just makes you want to tear up a phonebook.

I suppose the rational approach would be, make gun safety commercials advertising the dangers of guns and kids. Like those drug informercials with broken eggs, or "this is your brain on guns."

Of course the rational approach, is usually the opposite of the American approach, which is of course to be as irrational as humanly possible. Gun safety commercials would never air, because the tv channels would such commericals are too taboo and not family friendly, meanwhile playing superhero movies and iron man with rocket launchers everywhere, total split-minded insanity of the average 'merican.

Here's the thing, what I'm trying to understand, the thing I don't understand.

Why are these kinds of accountability laws needed?

For example.

If a gun goes off, and a bullet goes through the wall and kills a neighbor, the man is accused of manslaughter. He gets punished. So why exactly do we need more redundant laws, when said laws already exist?

If a gun goes of and kills his own kid, then he has lost his own kid. Why does he need additional punishment when already is punished enough, and has lost his own kid?

Same as if a reckless kids accidentally shoots his own father. What do you propose, fining the kid? Sending him to prison? Isn't he punished enough, by accidentally killing his own father?

Why are these redundant laws even needed? If a gun goes off accidentally killing someone, there are already laws to cover that.

So it boils down to this.
They ban Assault Rifles.
Mass murders still happen, so then the ban Handguns.
Mass murders still happen, so then they ban all firearms.
Now, mass murders are done by stabbings, poison, and bombs.
They ban bombs and put security guards in all restaurants and food areas. Now if you own a restaurant, you will have to pay for a security gaurd who watches over your employees at all times.
Also, you will need a special permit to buy certain common harmless things now, because certain common harmless things can be used to make bombs.
With bombs and poison banned, people will now go on mass sword and stabbing sprees.
They will go to the gym, get fit, toned up, to ensure they can outrun and fell all of their foes.
Then gyms will be banned, running in public will be banned, exercise will be banned, martial arts will be banned. You will be forced to put cameras in your house to ensure that you never exercise.
Everything will be virtual reality, no more forest, only an infinite city, a total police state where people die at age 30 or so, no freedom, no agency, all to keep you "safe", this is exactly what they wanted, its absolutely maddening to think about, just makes you want to tear up a phonebook.

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You cited a single example of a large-scale poisoning that- even assuming the alleged victims were indeed poisoned and didn't die of other causes- killed less people over a span of decades than some people in the US have killed in the span of a few minutes with handguns and assault rifles. There are plenty of first-world societies with major gun restrictions, and they don't appear to be collapsing into Armageddon as far as I can tell; do you have any relevant examples to share?

It appears that all the alternative mass killing methods you mentioned are considered in practice to be far more difficult to pull off than the gun method, otherwise you'd see Americans resorting to such methods and succeeding with them in comparable numbers.

You cited a single example of a large-scale poisoning that- even assuming the alleged victims were indeed poisoned and didn't die of other causes- killed less people over a span of decades than some people in the US have killed in the span of a few minutes with handguns and assault rifles. There are plenty of first-world societies with major gun restrictions, and they don't appear to be collapsing into Armageddon as far as I can tell; do you have any relevant examples to share?

It appears that all the alternative mass killing methods you mentioned are considered in practice to be far more difficult to pull off than the gun method, otherwise you'd see Americans resorting to such methods and succeeding with them in comparable numbers.

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People use guns for mass killing for the same reason people play FPS games, and don't play games where you poison people.
Because making poison is boring and stupid and impersonal.

So you might say, what about bombs or spears? Bombs also impersonal. Spears ancient and stupid. And I will tell you why they dont use swords.
They dont use swords because most of these mass murderers are pathetic weaklings who dont have the balls to use a sword.
I am of the ilk of generally disrepecting mass murderers. If a bully is giving you a hard time, choke the bully, beat the bully.
Its cowardly weaksauce to go around shooting randoms. Eliot Rodgers is the ultimate example of this, he mostly shot or killed his own guys actually and most of his victims were nerds and not the chads he hated.
People are cowards who take out their frustrations on innocent bystanders rather than the prime enemies who wronged them. Suicide is an example of this, they would rather kill themselves than trying to make the world a better place.

Bottom line is this. In my ideal utopia only thing we'd have is spears and swords, bows and arrows.

Personally I can't stand living in fear and afraid to be near doorways or windows. I want to live in peace where I am not afraid a random bullet will fly into my windshield or when I am walking outside one day.

But as it stands if I'm stuck in a room, I want to have a gun myself, I don't want to be stuck in a room while a gunman goes into the room and then I run outside and watch as he outruns me and guns me down to death. I hate that fate.

The other fate I hate is when the government has guns and we live under a police state tyranny where only cops, military, lawmakers and other criminals have guns, and the average at-risk citizen is not allowed to have guns. So give me my friggin guns.

The gun lobby is the same as the anti-gun folks; they just have a different opinion. Both are just as valid. Nazis vs. anti-Nazi protesters? Well, there are some very fine people on both sides. Anti-vaxxers? Have to get their input on this whole vaccine topic; after all, both opinions are just as valid when it comes to public health. Flat earthers? Well, can you really trust NASA? It's just a matter of opinion, anyway.

The gun lobby is the same as the anti-gun folks; they just have a different opinion. Both are just as valid. Nazis vs. anti-Nazi protesters? Well, there are some very fine people on both sides. Anti-vaxxers? Have to get their input on this whole vaccine topic; after all, both opinions are just as valid when it comes to public health. Flat earthers? Well, can you really trust NASA? It's just a matter of opinion, anyway.

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You compare nonsense to actual observation, and declare them equivalent. That's what Fox does, that's the wingnut approach.

In this issue, almost uniquely, we see that approach from "both sides", so frequently as to be characteristic.

You replied like that directly to me. In my posting, for a very long time here and right in front of you, what we have is a bothsides jamb in this one issue: gun control. It's an observation, and one I have argued for at considerable length with many examples over the years (easily found, right here). I have also repeated many, many times the assertion that this issue is almost - may be - unique in that respect; that its status as a bothsides jamb is unusual to the point of being one of a kind. I have posted long paragraphs addressing that exact phenomenon, including the unique features of it (usually the liberals rely on honest data, for example, and good faith arguments, and historical grounding, and stuff like that - the reality has a liberal bias, normally, and gun control is almost unique in its distribution of error and presumption and counterfactual claim and so forth on ""both sides").

And in that context, what do you do?

You proceed to illustrate my point, with a standard wingnut false equivalence - on the "other side". And that jambs the discussion, if allowed to.

Nope. There's no "ism" in a unique and specifically argued observation.
Bothsiderism starts with the assumption of bothsides, and argues from it toward a description of the situation. I start from the situation, and argue toward a conclusion - not an assumption - of a bothsides jamb, in this particular matter.

What we have is a bothsides jamb in this one issue: gun control. It's an observation, and one I have argued for at considerable length with many examples over the years (easily found, right here). I have also repeated many, many times the assertion that this issue is almost - may be - unique in that respect; that its status as a bothsides jamb is unusual to the point of being one of a kind. I have posted long paragraphs addressing that exact phenomenon, including the unique features of it (usually the liberals rely on honest data, for example, and good faith arguments, and historical grounding, and stuff like that - the reality has a liberal bias, normally).

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...and so you have... yep many times...over and over and over again...
How do you seriously intend to address your concerns in a way that doesn't continue to perpetuate the bothsides jamb that you believe is present?Note:
An observation is not a solution and given the fear based gun culture that exists in the USA, supported and reinforced by its constitution, a solution is unavailable until you change that culture.
A big ask... yes?

How do you seriously intend to address your concerns in a way that doesn't continue to perpetuate the bothsides jamb that you believe is present?

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By pointing to it, and noting that this is the kind of thing liberals - in particular - are supposed to avoid doing.

By opposing and preventing, to the best of my ability, error and bad argument and wrongfooting and repetition of false claims. By doing my best to restore the reality base of the liberal argument, the traditional and critical foundation of liberal politics in reason and fact, in this issue.

Because I think that's how my folks win. As evidence, observe the consequences of not doing that, in gun control.